


Let the Night Wind Us Down

by ama



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Communication, Dom/sub Play, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Mild S&M, Past Abuse, Porn with Feelings, Relationship Study, Under-negotiated Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-10 03:40:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15941027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ama/pseuds/ama
Summary: Kamet and Costis are happy in Roa, happy with their relationship, happy with their love life... but there are some things Kamet doesn't know how to ask for, and some things Costis doesn't know how to forget.





	Let the Night Wind Us Down

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "My Name is the Night (Color Me Black)" by Brian Fallon.

Although Kamet had experienced few enough love affairs himself, he was not unfamiliar with the act of love. He had spent more nights than he could remember waiting just outside his master’s door—or, on some occasions, just inside—so he would be prepared to offer food or wine to Nahuseresh’s wife or assorted mistresses when called for. He had even been a witness to some of the goings-on at the heir’s exclusive parties. It had been many years since he had been shocked by sex. He knew that, whatever the pious might say, the nobility acted on their lust just as frequently as the common folk they chastised—including the sailors and soldiers, who often seemed to bear the brunt of the moralists’ disapproval.

Put it another way, Kamet had always assumed that soldiers were just as lusty as the nobility, and cruder in their expression of it. But in this, as in so much else, his Attolian surprised him.

The first sign of Costis’s reserve came on the _Arrow_ , on the very first leg of their journey to Roa. They set out early in the morning, and had quickly come to an understanding—and Kamet had spent almost the entire day waiting for the Attolian to kiss him. He was not going to give Costis the satisfaction of standing on his tiptoes. But Costis had initiated no such contact, not even when they stowed their things in the reserved cabin and had a few minutes of privacy. He waited until night had fallen, when they were standing at the stern of the boat, when they were alone and the ambiance was right.

It was sweet, if unexpected. So too was the fact that Costis insisted on sleeping on the floor of their cabin, only occasionally swapping for the bed, and kept his hands to himself for the entire sea voyage and almost half the land voyage, although their traveling purse did not account for two separate rooms. Even when they arrived in Roa having grown quite accustomed to each others’ touch, Costis scrupulously set up his own bedroom and returned to it at least three nights a week.

“Where are you going?” Kamet had grumbled one night, sated and on the verge of sleep, when he realized that Costis had slipped out of bed and was creeping to the door.

“I wouldn’t want to presume,” he replied in an earnest voice and Kamet, too tired to point out how stupid he was, threw a pillow at his head.

It was not that Costis was _shy_ , and nor was he naive. He still swore like a soldier when he smashed his thumb with a hammer, or when he burned a pot on the stove, and once he _started_ kissing Kamet, he often didn’t stop until Kamet was breathless, dizzy, and pleasantly sore in places. He was just… over-polite.

So when he grabbed Kamet by the wrist one evening, pinning him to the bed squeezing so hard that he left bruises, and then apologized profusely without noticing that Kamet had just experienced an orgasm so intense that his legs were still shaking, Kamet knew that he would have to be very cautious in his approach.

In fairness, he had been surprised by his reaction, too. He had seen men and women grabbed, pushed, and scratched during sex, slapped with an open hand or whipped with thin canes, and the appeal of it had mystified him. But something about Costis’s touch sent a thrill up his spine. He wanted to chase that feeling.

He was crafty about it. He began to drag out their encounters, teasing Costis in the hope of provoking his impatience. He was judicious with the sounds he made, moaning louder when Costis was rougher, occasionally dropping _harder_ or _faster_ into the conversation. The results were inconsistent. Sometimes Costis ignored the provocations altogether. Other times he reacted appropriately, but apologized after, and Kamet was clumsy in brushing aside those apologies. Ordinarily, he tended to fall asleep quickly after they fucked, and complain if Costis disturbed him, but on those nights he took care to cuddle more than usual, to make it perfectly clear that he had enjoyed himself.

One night, he was on all fours on the bed and Costis growled and grabbed the meat of his ass with both hands. There was a loud smack when his palm connected, and Kamet gasped and thought _there’s an idea_.

Alas, he was forced to acknowledge, when he revisited the idea later, that the odds of subtly directing Costis to slap him where not good. And so he waited until one night when Costis was in a good mood, after they had already been kissing in bed for some time and shed some clothing, before he asked the question.

“You want me to _what_?” Costis asked with a frown.

“Hit me,” Kamet repeated, running his hands up and down his chest in a soothing gesture. “On the ass. You did it the other night and it felt good.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“It was accidental, I think. Of course, if you don’t want to…”

“I… yes,” Costis said after a moment. “Yes, of course, if it will make you happy.”

“Thank you,” Kamet said. He smiled and gave Costis a quick peck on the lips.

He lifted himself off of Costis’s lap and positioned himself on the bed. Costis stood behind him, one hand smoothing over the skin of his back, then up and down his thigh. The first slap was tentative, more sound than sensation.

“Like that?”

“A little harder, I think,” Kamet said, hiding his impatience. Costis smacked him again, hard enough to make the skin sting a little. “That’s better.”

Costis repeated the gesture twice, and then once with his other hand, and then hesitated again. Kamet’s head was beginning to get pleasantly fuzzy around the edges, and his skin was warm where Costis had touched him.

“How much do you want me to…?”

“I don’t know. Just—keep going. I will tell you if I want you to stop.”

“All right.”

Costis slapped him again and soon fell into a rhythm. Kamet face flushed, and he caught his breath with each slap. Soon he began to squirm—his cock was hard, but he had never been aroused like this, with so much _stimulation_ and so little _satisfaction_. He liked it. He wanted more. Costis was being cautious, but he was sure that a little more pain would be enough….

“Harder,” he pleaded. The rhythm stuttered for a moment, and then Costis slapped him again, with force behind it this time, so much that Kamet’s knee buckled on instinct and he let out a moan. Costis smacked his other cheek, softer again, and before Kamet could think he said “harder” again.

And then Costis said “No!”

The world tore itself from his mouth, and suddenly he backed away from the bed, so quickly Kamet could feel the space where he used to be.

“No, gods damn it, Kamet, I can’t—I _won’t_.”

Anger suffused his voice, and for a moment Kamet froze on instinct. What had he done wrong?

He flipped onto his back and made his voice like honey, like silk, like a brush of wind.

“Costis, it’s nothing to be upset—”

“No!” Costis cut him off. His face was red, and he stumbled away from the bed. “What do you take me for?”

He didn’t wait for an answer—without stopping to retrieve his shirt or sandals, he stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind him. Kamet stared at it in mute shock. He had been prepared for Costis to be confused by his predilection, disgusted even, but anger—the kind of anger that expressed itself in shouts and slammed doors—that he had not expected.

There was a second bang moments later as Costis left the house.

After a moment, Kamet stood up and brushed a hand through his hair. Shame stuck in his throat, and he swallowed a few times to clear it before reaching for his robe. He put it on and walked out of the house. On the doorstep, he paused. It was long past sunset, they had no neighbors, and aside from a single lamp in his bedroom, their own house was dark. The night around them was nothing but blank ink soaked into the page.

“Costis?” he called out.

He got no response. There was a distant splash, and Kamet frowned and pulled his robe tighter around himself. Carefully, he began to pick his way down the rocky cliff path behind the house. Southern Roa was a small, pointed peninsula with a number of inlets gouged out of the mainland. Theirs was a pleasant little spot, with a strip of beach big enough to picnic on occasionally.

Kamet wiggled his toes in the sand and watched as Costis swam a slow lap around the cove.

“Costis,” he called again.

Costis didn’t respond. He propelled himself forward with greater energy, and Kamet sighed. He sat down on a nearby boulder and pulled legs up, resting his chin on his knees. It seemed like he waited for a long time, and his irritation grew. It was early fall, and the wind coming off the ocean was too cold to be pleasant.

“Costis, this is childish,” he snapped. Costis had paused to catch his breath. He rested one hand on the cliff and treaded water, and it seemed like he glanced in Kamet’s direction. “If you are angry with me, come here and tell me, and then we can go back inside and go to bed. It’s too late to be playing this game.”

For a moment, it looked like Costis was going to keep swimming, but when he did, it was in a straight line back to the beach. He emerged from the water and shook his head like a dog.

“I am not angry with you,” he said tersely as he pulled up his trousers.

“No?”

“No. I’m just—angry.”

He sighed and sat down at the foot of Kamet’s boulder, facing away from him. Kamet wondered what to say and stared at his hair. It was much darker than usual, with the water and the darkness, and also longer than it had been when they met, forming soft waves at the back of his neck.

“Every time I see the scars on your back, I think about how I’d like to kill Nahuseresh,” Costis said finally.

Kamet caught so off guard that he almost missed the rest of what Costis said. He didn’t think about his scars very often, and he had almost forgotten that Costis would have to look at them frequently.

“Most of the time, I can ignore that feeling,” Costis continued, “but I can’t—I can’t _beat_ you without thinking about other men who have beaten you.”

“Beat me?” Kamet echoed.

“And I never want to feel like that. I never want to be—”

His voice was thick with disgust, and the fact that it was meant for his former master didn’t keep Kamet’s stomach from twisting in guilt. He touched his hand lightly on Costis’s shoulder. The Attolian flinched and fell silent.

“That was not a beating, Costis,” Kamet corrected. “Any more than a scratch is a mauling. Or taking a very hot bath and a steam is being boiled alive. It was a pleasant pain. I liked it. I asked you for it.” The other man was silent, and Kamet sighed again. “Have you ever been beaten?”

“My father and my tutor used a switch sometimes. And it was part of guard training. At least once, every man is set upon by a large number, to learn how to survive a beating. To learn how it feels to be overwhelmed.”

Kamet was already shaking his head.

“But you were never attacked by someone who might kill you.”

“No. Sometimes—during training, sometimes you forget.”

“It is not the same. With Nahuseresh… All I ever felt when he flogged me was terror. I knew it wouldn’t matter if he decided to kill me, or if he lost control of his temper and killed me accidentally. There was nothing I could do to stop a beating, and— and very little I could do to prevent one, no matter what I told myself.”

He realized his hand was shaking, and that Costis had almost certainly noticed it too. He pressed his hand against Costis’s shoulder harder to disguise the tremor, and then bent further down and wrapped his arms loosely around Costis’s chest. He touched his lips to his ear.

“Costis,” he said in a gentle voice, hardly above a whisper. “I am not a fool. I know how strong you are, and I know that you are a good soldier, but I have never been afraid of you. You have never reminded me of him or any other master—not in word, deed, or appearance. You are not a danger _to me_.”

“I almost killed  you, once,” Costis cried, jerking away. He was angry again—with himself or with Kamet, it wasn’t clear.

Kamet paused.

“Yes,” he said slowly. “I had forgotten that.”

“You forgot—!” Costis turned around so he was kneeling in the sand. Kamet drew his arms back and folded his hands in his lap. He looked down at his fingers to avoid the righteous fire in Costis’s eyes. “I haven’t forgotten. We were not strangers by then, Kamet, we were _friends_ , and yet it took so little to provoke me to the point where I might have killed you. And I haven’t forgotten the look you gave me when I killed the slavers, either. How can you not be afraid of me? I am afraid of myself.”

His voice wavered, and Kamet looked up at him. Costis did look afraid. His eyes were wide, and his face was pale in the moonlight. Kamet reached up to touch his cheek.

“It is getting easier,” Costis continued. “I never used to lose my temper, but in the last few years… I hit the king, I almost strangled you, I…”

“In fairness,” Kamet murmured. “Both the king and I were trying to provoke you to violence. But I understand,” he added quickly, seeing that Costis was going to protest. “I will not be persuaded to think of you as a cruel or violent man, but I understand why the prospect frightens you. I won’t ask you to hit me again.”

“Thank you.” Costis leaned forward for a barely-there kiss, and brushed his hand over Kamet’s cheek in return. “Sometimes I wonder…” He paused. “I wonder if you would notice if I became… not cruel, but _crueler_. If I already…”

He trailed off, and Kamet frowned in confusion.

“Costis?”

The Attolian avoided his gaze.

“When we first met, the way you looked at me when I tried to treat you with kindness… As if it were _foolish_ for me to think of treating a slave as an equal, as if you didn’t believe simple courtesy should be afforded to you. I wonder, am I really kind to you? Or am I simply kinder than a master would be? And if I began to slip, would you still think me kind, as long as I never became _that_ cruel?”

Kamet stared at him for a long time after that, speechless. Anger, pity, and fear wrestled in his breast, and he turned his head to look at the sea instead of Costis. The wind was still cold, but suddenly he didn’t mind it. He breathed in the cool, salty air and waited patiently as it brought clarity to his roiling thoughts.

He looked back at Costis and took his chin in his hand.

“Look at me,” he said quietly. Costis took a deep breath, eyelids fluttering shut, and then opened his gaze and fixed it on Kamet. “Costis, if I had not been a slave, I would not know any of the stories that you love to hear me tell. I would not be able to balance the accounts as well as I can. I would not be able to read people like books. I would not be so vain, or so patient, or so quiet. I would take for granted many of the things I have learned to delight in, these last few months. Would you strip me of all of this? Is that the man you want, one free of any hint of a slave’s past?”

“No,” Costis said in a hoarse voice.

“No,” Kamet agreed. “I know…” His own voice was raspy, and he cleared his throat. “I know it has taken me some time to become accustomed to the liberties of a free man. But it is equally true that I was accustomed to some luxuries in the Mede palace that you can only dream of, o son of a farmer.”

Costis chuckled at that. Kamet kissed his forehead, and then flung his arms around Costis in a tight hug. It was an awkward angle, perched on the boulder as he was, but they made it work.

“I _am_ happy, here with you,” he whispered. “Believe that.”

“I… will do my best,” Costis promised.

“And I will do my best to inform you when I am not. I can whine very convincingly. Such as…” He drew back and tilted his head. “Costis, I am cold and tired and I don’t want to be sitting on this beach anymore.”

“All right,” Costis said with a conciliatory smile. “Come, let’s go back to the house.”

He stood and held out a hand for Kamet to lean on as he stepped down from the boulder, as if he were a particularly delicate maiden. But Kamet took his hand without complaint, and held it until they reached a section of the cliff path that was too narrow to admit two. They returned to the house, but Kamet did not go straight to the bedroom. Instead he relit the lamp on the kitchen table and built a small fire in the belly of the stove.

“I am going to make a cup of tea. Would you like some?”

“No, thank you, but I’ll sit with you.”

“Your trousers are still soaking, and now coated in sand.”

“So.”

Costis stripped off his trousers and put on his nightshirt, and sat down at the kitchen table as Kamet put the kettle on the stove. When the leaves had steeped for long enough, he added a spoonful of honey and sat down. A peaceful silence had settled over them.

“Why did you enjoy it when I hit you?”

Kamet choked on his tea.

“What?” he coughed. “Why do you ask? I told you, I won’t—”

“Yes, yes, I know. But you said you enjoyed it, and even if I can’t do _that_ , I do want to—please you.”

He forced the words out in a casual tone, but there was a blush on his cheekbones, which Kamet found amusing.

“You do please me. On an almost daily basis,” he teased, just to see the blush deepen.

“And besides,” Costis persisted. “We ought to be able to talk about this. We ought to be able to ask each other for things we like, and ask for none of what we don’t.” He frowned. “This has been going on for weeks, hasn’t it? You have been enjoying it when I am… not gentle… but it wasn’t until tonight that you _asked_. You tried to manage me. You did not speak as one free man to another.”

Kamet had lifted his cup to his lips, but he stopped before he took a sip and mulled over the words. It was true. He had not realized it before—but it was true. What would have happened if he had spoken to Costis that first night, and asked him to leave more bruises, to pin him down more? What was the _worst_ that could have happened? Costis would hardly have sailed back to Attolia over it. At best, they would have argued and been awkward and silent around each other for a few days. Dangerous outcomes for a slave. Unpleasant ones for a free man, but not prohibitively so.

“Yes,” he said softly. He couldn’t quite bring himself to form the words _you are right_ , but they hung in the air. “Yes, let’s talk. Remind me what you want to know.”

“Why you enjoy the hitting.”

Kamet considered this for a moment.

“Some of it, I think, is just the sensation. A little bit of pain makes the pleasure more intense, the way a cold, biting wind improves a hot drink. And also… I have never been vain about my looks. I have never thought about it much. But sometimes, when you are ungentle, I feel not only attractive, but—enticing.”

“Enticing?” Costis repeated.

“Yes. As though I—drive you wild.” He was grateful for the darkness of his skin and the low light provided by the lamp, which would disguise his own blush. He moved his chair closer. “It is the difference between this—”

He cradled Costis’s head in his hands and kissed him, a soft, wet, sweet kiss.

“And this.”

He kissed him again, this time digging his fingers into Costis’s hair, nipping at his lips, and kissing him until they were both breathless.

“Ah,” Costis said when he drew back. “I understand.”

“I thought you might.”

“You do drive me wild,” he confessed in a low murmur. “I would seek you out three times a day, if I did not have to march through a temple of priests to do so. And the hitting—it is just more of that?” he added before Kamet had to think of a response, which was good, because he was suddenly feeling light-headed.

“Yes,” he said, gulping at his tea to regain some composure. “Only more deliberate. I think it is because I am so comfortable around you. A slave can never forget power. He can never give up whatever scraps of it he has claimed. But I care so little about status around you, that I can put myself at your mercy without even thinking about it, simply because I like the sensations it brings.”

“Ah,” Costis said again. He considered this for a few moments as Kamet drained his cup. “I could carry you,” he offered unexpectedly.

“What?”

“In Attolia, soldiers always pass around dirty stories. Many of them follow along the same lines, and one of the popular types is a wealthy lady who has an affair with a guard or a soldier. In most versions, there is a moment where he picks her up and carries her to bed. Like this.”

He stood and scooped Kamet up into his arms as easily as he would a cat. Kamet bleated, landing a feeble punch on Costis’s arm as he carried him over to their bed.

“You brute!” he scolded when Costis dumped him on the mattress, blanketing him with his body shortly after.

“Exactly,” Costis grinned. “Your big, strong, Attolian brute.”

“Yes,” Kamet said. “You may manhandle me as much as you like.”

A few more giggles bubbled up in his chest, and he reached up to touch Costis’s face. His fingers rested on his jaw, and with the slightest pressure he directed Costis to kiss him. It was gentle, at first, a lazy kiss that did nothing but acknowledge their reconciliation.

That did not last. He could feel as Costis’s breathing became a shade quicker, as his arm wrapped tighter around Kamet’s middle, pressing him close. His own breath came quicker, too, and when he pulled back, an involuntary sigh passed through his lips. But there was something he needed to ask first.

“What about you?” he asked breathlessly.

“Hm?”

“Is there something you would like—some way I can please you that we have not tried or discussed?”

“Oh.” Costis rolled over onto his back and frowned at the ceiling. “Do you remember that event, soon after we arrived? The dinner at the temple?”

“Yes. That was the night you were angry with me, and wouldn’t tell me why.”

It was a formal dinner in celebration of the patron’s feast day. Kamet and the rest of the visiting scholars had been invited, and he had thought that Costis’s exclusion from the invitation might be why he had barely spoken to or looked at Kamet all afternoon, and been in bed by the time he returned home. They were still uncertain around each other, then. They had slept in separate beds and separate bedrooms.

“No,” Costis said. He was blushing again.

“No?”

“No, I was not _angry_.” He paused. “You were wearing that… red shirt. And scent. And something about… you looked very nice.”

Kamet bit his lip, because poor Costis was going to burst a blood vessel if Kamet laughed at him now. He had worn his best tunic, a gift from the king—wine red, with amber beads and embroidery, and just a touch too big for him. The neckline gaped a little. He had also added a swipe of kohl to his eyelids, as was the custom in Magyar, and added drops of cologne to his wrists and behind his ears.

“Lordling and brute,” he mused. “That works out well.”

“So, so, so,” Costis said. He cleared his throat.

“What else?”

“What else?”

“Yes.” Kamet propped himself up on his elbow. “Those three times a day when you are frightened off by the priests—what do you think about?”

“Oh.” Costis kept his eyes fixed on the ceiling; it seemed easier that way. “Well—sometimes I’m not thinking about—about fucking. Sometimes I just want to see your face if I walked in the room and got on my knees in front of you.”

“I do enjoy that,” Kamet murmured.

“Yes, but usually…” Costis swallowed. “Usually it leads to more soon after. I think—the anticipation might be— nice.”

“Yes,” Kamet agreed. “Quite nice.”

He felt a sudden surge of affection rise in his breast, and he swallowed a lump in his throat. Costis was so _kind_. This whole conversation had begun because he couldn’t quiet his overactive conscience, and even though it was painfully clear that he was struggling to form his thoughts into words, he was still trying, because Kamet had asked.

“Oh, Costis,” he said, swooping down to kiss his cheek. “I do love you.”

“I know,” Costis replied, puzzled. “And I love you as well.”

“Do I tell you as often as I should?”

“You tell me as often as you like, and that is enough. But I will never tire of hearing it.” Kamet smiled, and Costis reached up to cradle his cheek. “Is there anything else I could do for you? Besides the manhandling?”

Kamet looked down at him, and slowly tilted his head.

“Yes,” he said thoughtfully. “I think there might be. In your stories—the lady and the brute.”

“Not _my_ stories.”

“In the stories you have read. The brute is a soldier, or a guard. So the lady is not only richer than he is. She has—authority.”

“Yes.”

“A guard cannot ravish the lady of the house whenever he wishes. He must wait until she calls him. She must be the one giving the orders.”

“Yes,” Costis repeated, slower this time, and it looked as though his pupils were dilated.

“And does the guard obey her orders?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes not.” Costis cleared his throat.

“Would you obey my orders?” Kamet asked in a voice as smooth and light as silk. He did not look at Costis; he watched his own hand as it trailed up and down the sheets.

“Yes.”

“Hmm.” Kamet looked up from beneath his lashes to see Costis watching him, the air around him thrumming with anticipation. “Sit over there,” Kamet directed. He kept his voice light, to begin with—it was almost a suggestion.

Wordlessly, Costis shifted so that he was sitting near the foot of the bed, one leg bent in front of him and the other slipping off the side.

“Strip.” His voice was a little firmer, this time, but Costis hesitated. “Costis.”

Slowly, Costis lifted his nightshirt and pulled it over his head. He tossed it to the floor and waited. Kamet took his time, admiring the view. The Attolian was very handsome, and he was displayed to advantage like this, with the lamplight wandering through the open door. His tanned skin was golden, and the shadows emphasized the muscles in his chest and shoulders. It was no wonder that more than one of the local girls sighed whenever he passed by. Costis, the beloved fool, had yet to notice.

“Touch yourself,” Kamet ordered, casually, as if his heart wasn’t racing in his chest. Costis’s eyes widened, and he blushed as he glanced away, but Kamet could see that he was almost erect already, from the conversation or from their kissing earlier. “Come on, Costis,” he said sweetly, although he moved no closer. “It’s not as though we were strangers. _I_ have touched you often enough. Now I only want to watch.”

“Why?”

“Do you question the orders your captain gives you, or your king?”

“No. But I am usually not naked.”

“Usually?”

That got a smile out of Costis, and Kamet leaned forward to kiss him lightly on the lips as a reward.

“I want to watch because I find you nice to look at,” he murmured. “And I would like to give the sight my full attention. You said that you would attend my orders.”

Costis nodded and swallowed. His pupils were large and dark in the dim room, and as Kamet leaned back and settled against the pillows, he wrapped a hand around his own cock. His eyes fluttered shut and a soft sigh escaped his lips. He began to stroke, slowly at first, biting his lip to keep more noises from escaping. One leg was still bent on the bed in front of him, obscuring his lap.

“The view is not as clear as I would like,” Kamet commented.

Costis did not need a direct order; he straightened his leg and leaned back, so his shadow did not fall on the bed as much. He squeezed the head of his cock, pulling his hand away slowly and dragging a stuttering moan from his mouth, and then gripped the base and halted, in case Kamet wanted to look. He opened his eyes and his gaze found Kamet’s right away.

“Very good,” Kamet said, feeling like a satisfied cat. “Continue. And do not bite your lip again.”

Costis nodded again and began to stroke himself, faster now, although he occasionally remembered his audience and slowed down to show off. His lips were pressed together, and the only mark of his pleasure were the inconsistencies in his breathing. Quick breaths one after the other, his nostrils flaring, and then a deep inhale that shook on the exhale. Kamet had expected this. He was never particularly loud, not in the beginning.

Then a faint whimper sounded in the back of Costis’s throat, and his cock began to leak onto the sheets. Kamet swallowed thickly, crossing his legs to disguise his own arousal.

“Stop,” he forced himself to say. Costis looked up in disbelief, but his hand stilled. “I said, stop.”

Reluctantly, Costis rested his hand on his thigh, and Kamet was able to drink his fill of the sight before him. There was a slight sheen of sweat on Costis’s skin, and his chest rose and fell with each breath. Liquid beaded at the head of his cock, too, bobbing between his thighs. He was staring intently at Kamet, and this time the flush in his cheeks had nothing to do with embarrassment.

Gods, Kamet thought, how beautiful. It was foolish to be doing this by the light of a dying lamp in the other room; he wondered if Costis could be persuaded to try it again, during the day, with the windows flung open, or perhaps on a blanket outside…

Costis waited. His hand drifted closer to his cock, and he gritted his teeth.

“Kamet,” he said beseechingly. “Please?”

“Since you ask so sweetly. Continue.”

First, Costis stood and repositioned himself so he was kneeling on the bed with his legs spread, and that was _very_ nice. He had better leverage like that. He could thrust his hips in time with his hand, which was an action perfectly calculated to make Kamet’s mouth run dry.

“Please,” Costis said again. “Could you…?”

He made a slight gesture with his other hand, indicating Kamet’s robe. Kamet nodded. He didn’t take it off entirely, but he let the silky material slip down his shoulders and fall open in the front. Costis’s gaze raked his body hungrily and his breathing came harder.

Kamet balled his fists so tightly that he knew he would leave little half-moons in his palm. He wanted to watch, he reminded himself. Just to watch. He could touch anytime he wanted, but tonight he wanted to _watch_ —

“Oh, gods,” Costis gasped, and he came suddenly with a loud, low groan that rumbled through his chest.

Kamet bit his lip so hard he almost pierced the skin, in an effort to keep his face as blank as possible. He wasn’t sure if he succeeded; Costis was still for a moment, one hand resting on the mattress for balance as he gulped in air, but when he looked up, he took one look at Kamet’s face he almost dove forward. He lay propped up on his elbows, parted Kamet’s knees, and swallowed his cock.

“Oh, gods,” Kamet echoed, throwing his head back. It hit the wall with a dull thump, and he knew he would regret it tomorrow, but for now he didn’t care. His composure was gone as he babbled, hands wandering over Costis’s head, his neck, his broad shoulders. “Costis—ahh, yes, bless you, you beautiful man—”

Costis did not move right away when Kamet’s orgasm came and he fell back, spent, against the pillows. He rested his head against Kamet’s thighs for a moment with his eyes closed, and then opened them and tilted his head to give Kamet a dopey grin.

“What?” Kamet asked, poking his forehead.

“I love you.”

Kamet reached down and and cupped his cheek, brushing a thumb over his warm skin.

“You do, don’t you?” he said in a quiet, thoughtful voice. He pushed slightly on Costis’s jaw and the Attolian sat up and shifted closer so Kamet could kiss him. “Thank you for that.”

“My pleasure.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! You can find me on tumblr @whocalledhimannux.


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